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United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Committee on Armed
Services, House of Representatives:
For Release on Delivery:
Expected at 3:30 p.m. EDT:
Wednesday, June 27, 2012:
Modernizing The Nuclear Security Enterprise:
Observations on the Organization and Management of the National
Nuclear Security Administration:
Statement of Gene Aloise, Director:
Natural Resources and Environment:
GAO-12-867T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-12-867T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Strategic Forces, Committee on Armed Services, House of
Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study:
During the late 1990s, DOE had difficulties with a lack of clear
management authority and responsibility that contributed to security
problems at the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories and management
problems with major projects. In response, Congress created NNSA as a
separately organized agency within DOE under the NNSA Act. NNSA is
responsible for managing nuclear weapon- and nonproliferation-related
national security activities in laboratories and other facilities,
collectively known as the nuclear security enterprise. GAO continues
to identify problems across the nuclear security enterprise, from
projects’ cost and schedule overruns to inadequate oversight of safety
and security at NNSA’s sites. With NNSA proposing to spend tens of
billions of dollars to modernize its facilities, it is important to
ensure scarce resources are spent in an effective and efficient manner.
This testimony addresses (1) NNSA’s early experiences organizing and
operating as a separately organized agency within DOE and (2) NNSA’s
efforts to correct long-standing management deficiencies. It is based
on prior GAO reports issued from January 1995 to March 2012.
What GAO Found:
Fiscal Year 2000 (NNSA Act), the Department of Energy (DOE) and the
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) struggled to determine
how NNSA should operate as a separately organized agency within the
department. A number of factors contributed to this. First, DOE and
NNSA did not have a useful model to follow for establishing a
separately organized agency in DOE. Several federal agencies were
suggested as models, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in the Department of Commerce. However, GAO reported in
January 2007 that agency officials GAO interviewed did not consider
their agency to be separately organized or believed that their agency’
s operational methods were transferable to NNSA. Second, DOE’s January
2000 plan to implement the NNSA Act did not define how NNSA would
operate as a separately organized agency within DOE. Internal DOE
opposition to the creation of NNSA led the department to fill
virtually every significant statutory position in NNSA with DOE
officials (i.e., having DOE officials contemporaneously serve in NNSA
and DOE positions). As GAO testified in April 2001, this practice of “
dual-hatting” caused considerable concern about NNSA’s ability to
independently function. Also, lack of formal agreement between DOE and
NNSA in a number of key areas such as, among others, budgeting and
procurement, led to organizational conflicts that inhibited effective
operations. Even where formal procedures were developed, interpersonal
disagreements hindered effective cooperation. For example, a January
2007 GAO report described the conflict between NNSA and DOE
counterintelligence offices, which led to Congress subsequently
amending the NNSA Act to consolidate the counterintelligence programs
of DOE and NNSA under DOE.
NNSA has made considerable progress resolving some of its long-
standing management deficiencies, but significant improvement is still
needed especially in NNSA’s management of its major projects and
contracts. GAO reported in June 2004 that NNSA has better delineated
lines of authority and has improved communication between its
headquarters and site offices. In addition, NNSA’s establishment of an
effective headquarters security organization has made significant
progress resolving many of the security weaknesses GAO has identified.
Nevertheless, NNSA continues to experience major cost and schedule
overruns on its projects, such as research and production facilities
and nuclear weapons refurbishments, principally because of ineffective
oversight and poor contractor management. In some areas, NNSA can be
viewed as a success. Importantly, NNSA has continued to ensure that
the nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable in the absence
of underground nuclear testing. At the same time, NNSA’s struggles in
defining itself as a separately organized agency within DOE, and the
considerable management problems that remain have led to calls in
Congress and other organizations to increase NNSA’s independence from
DOE. However, senior DOE and NNSA officials have committed to
continuing reform, and DOE’s and NNSA’s efforts have led to some
management improvements. As a result, GAO continues to believe, as it
concluded in its January 2007 report, that drastic organizational
change to increase independence is unnecessary and questions whether
such change would solve the agency’s remaining management problems.
What GAO Recommends:
DOE and NNSA continue to act on the numerous recommendations GAO has
made to improve NNSA’s management. GAO will continue to monitor DOE’s
and NNSA’s implementation of these recommendations.
[End of section]
Chairman Turner, Ranking Member Sanchez, and Members of the
Subcommittee:
We are pleased to be here today to discuss the creation and
implementation of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)--
a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy (DOE).
As you know, NNSA is responsible for the management and security of
the nation's nuclear weapons, nuclear nonproliferation, and naval
reactor programs at research and development laboratories, production
plants, and other facilities known collectively as the nuclear
security enterprise.[Footnote 1]
During the late 1990s, DOE experienced management difficulties with
its nuclear weapons program that contributed to security problems at
the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories and significant cost
overruns on major projects. According to a June 1999 report by the
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, DOE's management of
the nuclear weapons laboratories, while representing "science at its
best," also embodied "security at its worst" because of
"organizational disarray, managerial neglect, and…a culture of
arrogance." The board urged Congress to create a new organization
that, whether established as an independent agency or a semiautonomous
agency within DOE, would have a clear mission, streamlined
bureaucracy, and drastically simplified lines of authority and
accountability. Responding to the board's recommendations, Congress
created NNSA under Title 32 of the National Defense Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 2000--the NNSA Act.[Footnote 2]
The NNSA Act established NNSA as a "separately organized agency"
within DOE. The act established the position of DOE Under Secretary
for Nuclear Security, who was also designated as the Administrator of
NNSA. The Secretary of Energy and the Deputy Secretary of Energy were
allowed to establish policy for NNSA and to give direction to NNSA
through the Administrator; however, other DOE employees were
prohibited from directing the activities of individual NNSA employees.
In addition, the NNSA Act required that, among other things, NNSA
develop a planning, programming, and budgeting process to ensure that
NNSA operated under sound financial management principles. Using this
planning, programming, and budgeting process, NNSA is also required to
annually submit to Congress a Future Years Nuclear Security Program
(FYNSP) plan that details NNSA's planned expenditures for the next 5
years.
DOE's and NNSA's management of the nuclear security enterprise has
been the subject of much criticism. The department's problems are long-
standing. For example, we first designated DOE's management of its
contracts as an area at high risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and
mismanagement in 1990 because of the department's record of inadequate
management and oversight of its contractors. In January 1995, we
reported that DOE's laboratories did not have clearly defined missions
that focus their considerable resources on accomplishing the
department's changing objectives and national priorities.[Footnote 3]
Noting that the laboratories have made vital contributions to the
nation's defense and civilian science and technology efforts, we
reported that DOE had not coordinated these laboratories' efforts to
solve national problems but had instead managed each laboratory on a
program-by-program basis. The establishment of NNSA as a
semiautonomous agency within DOE in 2000 was intended to correct these
long-standing and widely recognized DOE management problems, which had
been underscored by significant cost overruns on major projects and
security problems at the national laboratories.
NNSA's creation, however, has not yet had the desired effect of fully
resolving these management problems. Progress has been made, but NNSA
and DOE's Office of Environmental Management remain on our high-risk
list.[Footnote 4] Furthermore, we continue to identify problems across
the nuclear security enterprise, ranging from significant cost and
schedule overruns on major projects to ineffective federal oversight
of safety and security at NNSA's sites.[Footnote 5] Concerns have also
been raised by national laboratory and other officials that DOE's and
NNSA's oversight of the laboratories' activities has been excessive
and that the safety and security requirements the laboratories' are
subject to are overly prescriptive and burdensome, which has resulted
in a negative effect on the quality of science performed at these
laboratories.
In January 2007, we testified before this Subcommittee on the extent
to which NNSA has taken steps to improve security at its facilities,
improve its management practices, and revise its organizational
structure.[Footnote 6] Similarly, in February 2012, we testified
before this Subcommittee on NNSA's management of the nuclear security
enterprise.[Footnote 7] My testimony today, which is based on these
and other reports and testimonies we have issued since NNSA's
creation, discusses (1) NNSA's early experiences organizing and
operating as a separately organized agency within DOE and (2) NNSA's
efforts to correct long-standing management deficiencies. Detailed
information about scope and methodology can be found in our issued
reports. We conducted the performance audit work that supports this
statement in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform audits to
obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis
for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We
believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Background:
DOE is responsible for a diverse set of missions, including nuclear
security, energy research, and environmental cleanup. These missions
are managed by various organizations within DOE and largely carried
out by contractors at DOE sites. According to federal budget data,
NNSA is the largest organization in DOE, overseeing nuclear weapons,
nuclear nonproliferation, and naval reactors missions at its sites.
With a $10.5 billion budget in fiscal year 2011--nearly 40 percent of
DOE's total budget--NNSA is responsible for, among other things,
providing the United States with safe, secure, and reliable nuclear
weapons in the absence of underground nuclear testing and maintaining
core competencies in nuclear weapons science, technology, and
engineering. Ensuring that the nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe
and reliable in the absence of underground nuclear testing is
extraordinarily complicated and requires state-of-the-art experimental
and computing facilities, as well as the skills of top scientists in
the field. Over the past decade, the United States has invested
billions of dollars in sustaining the cold war-era stockpile and
upgrading the laboratories and, in 2011, the administration announced
plans to request $88 billion from Congress over the next decade to
operate and modernize the nuclear security enterprise and ensure that
base scientific, technical, and engineering capabilities are
sufficiently supported, and the nuclear deterrent in the United States
can continue to be safe, secure, and reliable.
Under DOE's long-standing model of having unique management and
operating (M&O) contractors at each site, management of its sites has
historically been decentralized and, thus, fragmented. Since the
Manhattan Project produced the first atomic bomb during World War II,
NNSA, DOE, and their predecessor agencies have depended on the
expertise of private firms, universities, and others to carry out
research and development work and efficiently operate the facilities
necessary for the nation's nuclear defense. DOE's relationship with
these entities has been formalized over the years through its M&O
contracts--agreements that give DOE's contractors unique
responsibility to carry out major portions of DOE's missions and apply
their scientific, technical, and management expertise.[Footnote 8]
Currently, DOE spends 90 percent of its annual budget on M&O
contracts, making it the largest non-Department of Defense contracting
agency in the government. The M&O contractors at DOE's NNSA sites have
operated under DOE's direction and oversight but largely independently
of one another. Various headquarters and field-based organizations
within DOE and NNSA develop policies, and NNSA site offices,
collocated with NNSA's sites, conduct day-to-day oversight of the M&O
contractors and evaluate the contractors' performance in carrying out
the sites' missions.
DOE and NNSA Struggled to Determine How NNSA Should Operate as a
Separately Organized Agency:
NNSA focused considerable attention on reorganizing its internal
operations; however, it and DOE have struggled with establishing how
NNSA should operate as a separately organized agency within the
department. Several factors contributed to this situation. First, DOE
and NNSA did not have a useful model to follow for establishing a
separately organized agency in DOE. The President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board's June 1999 report suggested several
federal agencies, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in the Department of Commerce, which could be used as a
model for NNSA. However, as we reported in January 2007, none of the
agency officials we interviewed considered their agency to be
separately organized or believed that their agency's operational
methods were transferable to NNSA.[Footnote 9] Second, DOE's January
2000 implementation plan, which was required by the NNSA Act, did not
define how NNSA would operate as a separately organized agency within
DOE. Instead, reflecting the opposition of the then DOE senior
leadership to the creation of NNSA, the implementation plan "dual-
hatted" virtually every significant statutory position in NNSA with
DOE officials (i.e., having DOE officials contemporaneously serve in
NNSA and DOE positions), including the Director of NNSA's Office of
Defense Nuclear Counterintelligence and General Counsel. As we
testified in April 2001, this practice caused considerable concern
about NNSA's ability to function with the independence envisioned in
the NNSA Act.[Footnote 10] Dual-hatting was subsequently forbidden by
an amendment to the NNSA Act.[Footnote 11]
A lack of formal agreement between DOE and NNSA in a number of key
areas--budgeting, procurement, information technology, management and
administration, and safeguards and security--resulted in
organizational conflicts that inhibited effective operations. Even
where formal procedures were developed, interpersonal disagreements
hindered effective cooperation. For example, our January 2007 report
described the conflict between NNSA and DOE counterintelligence
offices.[Footnote 12] Specifically, NNSA and DOE counterintelligence
officials disagreed over (1) the scope and direction of the
counterintelligence program, (2) their ability to jointly direct staff
in the headquarters counterintelligence program offices, (3) the
allocation of counterintelligence resources, (4) counterintelligence
policy making and (5) their roles and responsibilities in handling
specific counterintelligence matters. Subsequently, Congress amended
the NNSA Act to consolidate the counterintelligence programs of DOE
and NNSA under the Department of Energy.[Footnote 13]
These persistent challenges defining NNSA's role as a separately
organized agency have led to calls in Congress and other organizations
to enhance NNSA's ability to operate independently of DOE. For
example, the Defense Science Board proposed in 2006 that a completely
independent nuclear weapons agency be created.[Footnote 14] DOE's
Office of Inspector General has also recently questioned the
relationship between DOE and NNSA. Specifically, in November 2011,
DOE's Office of Inspector General reported that NNSA, as a result of
its separately organized status, maintains a costly set of distinctly
separate overhead and indirect cost operations that often duplicate
existing DOE functions.[Footnote 15] For example, NNSA retains
separate functions in areas such as, among others, congressional
affairs, general counsel, human resources, procurement and
acquisition, and public affairs. According to this November 2011
report, these redundant operations are costly and can complicate
communications and program execution. There have been continuing calls
for removing NNSA from DOE and establishing it as a separate agency.
We reported in January 2007 that former senior DOE and NNSA officials
with whom we spoke generally did not favor removing NNSA from DOE; we
concluded that such drastic change was unnecessary to produce an
effective organization.[Footnote 16]
NNSA Has Made Considerable Improvements, but Deficiencies Persist,
Especially in Management of Major Projects and Contracts:
Since its creation, NNSA has made considerable progress resolving some
of its long-standing management deficiencies. For example, we reported
in June 2004 that NNSA had better delineated lines of authority and
improved communication between NNSA headquarters and its site offices.
[Footnote 17] Furthermore, our January 2007 report contained 21
recommendations to the Secretary of Energy and the Administrator of
NNSA that were intended to correct deficiencies in five areas--
organization, security, project management, program management, and
financial management. DOE and NNSA have taken important steps to
address most of these recommendations. For example, to improve
security, we recommended that the Administrator of NNSA, among other
things, implement a professional development program for security
staff to ensure the completion of needed training, develop a framework
to evaluate results from security reviews and guide security
improvements, and establish formal mechanisms for sharing and
implementing lessons learned across the weapons complex. NNSA's
establishment of an effective headquarters security organization has
made significant progress implementing these recommendations by
performing security reviews, developing security performance measures,
and instituting a security lessons-learned center.
Nevertheless, NNSA continues to experience significant deficiencies,
particularly in its management of major projects and contracts. As we
testified in February 2012, a basic tenet of effective management is
the ability to complete projects on time and within budget.[Footnote
18] However, for more than a decade, NNSA has continued to experience
significant cost and schedule overruns on its major projects,
principally because of ineffective oversight and poor contractor
management. We have reported that NNSA's efforts to extend the
operational lives of nuclear weapons in the stockpile have experienced
cost increases and schedule delays, such as a $300 million cost
increase and 2-year delay in the refurbishment of the W87 nuclear
warhead and a $70 million cost increase and 1-year delay in the
refurbishment of the W76 nuclear warhead.[Footnote 19] Furthermore, we
reported that the estimated cost to construct a modern Uranium
Processing Facility at NNSA's Y-12 National Security Complex
experienced a nearly sevenfold cost increase from between $600 million
and $1.1 billion in 2004 to between $4.2 billion and $6.5 billion in
2011.[Footnote 20] We also reported in March 2012 that NNSA's project
to construct a new plutonium research facility at Los Alamos National
Laboratory--the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear
Facility--would cost between $3.7 billion and $5.8 billion--nearly a
sixfold increase from NNSA's original estimate.[Footnote 21] NNSA's
February 2012 decision to defer construction of this facility for at
least 5 years will result in a total delay of between 8 and 12 years
from its original plans.
NNSA's planning, programming, and budgeting process has also
experienced a setback, which raises questions about the process's
capability and flexibility. Specifically, NNSA's modernization and
operations plans are detailed and annually updated in the agency's
Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (SSMP), which provides
details of nuclear security enterprise modernization and operations
plans over the next two decades. In addition, as discussed above, the
NNSA Act requires NNSA to annually submit to Congress an FYNSP--a
budget document approved by the Office of Management and Budget that
details NNSA's planned expenditures for the next 5 years. Furthermore,
Section 1043 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2012 requires the Department of Defense and NNSA to jointly produce an
annual report that, among other things, provides a detailed 10-year
estimate of modernization budget requirements. NNSA neither submitted
an FYNSP based on "programmatic requirements"[Footnote 22] nor the
Section 1043 annual report with its fiscal year 2013 budget
submission. In addition, NNSA has yet to release an updated SSMP.
According to the Secretary of Energy, the August 2011 Budget Control
Act created "new fiscal realities" that have caused the agency to
revise its long-range modernization and operations plans and budget.
[Footnote 23] An NNSA official told us that the revised plans, which
will include the FYNSP, Section 1043 annual report, and updated SSMP
should be completed in July 2012. We are currently reviewing NNSA's
planning, programming, and budgeting process in response to a request
from the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Senate
Committee on Appropriations, and we expect to issue a report on this
work in the next few months.
In conclusion, producing a well-organized and effective agency out of
what was widely considered a dysfunctional enterprise has been a
considerable challenge. In some areas, NNSA can be viewed as a
success. In particular, NNSA has successfully ensured that the nuclear
weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable in the absence of
underground nuclear testing, accomplishing this complicated task by
using state-of-the-art facilities, as well as the skills of top
scientists. As we testified in February 2012, maintaining government-
owned facilities that were constructed more than 50 years ago and
ensuring M&O contractors are sustaining critical human capital skills
that are highly technical in nature and limited in supply are both
difficult undertakings. Careful federal oversight over the tens of
billions of dollars NNSA proposes to spend to modernize nuclear
facilities will be necessary to ensure these funds are spent in as an
effective and efficient manner as possible, especially given NNSA's
record of weak management of its major projects.
Over the past decade, we have made numerous recommendations to DOE and
NNSA to improve their management and oversight practices. DOE and NNSA
have acted on many of these recommendations and have made considerable
progress. Nevertheless, enough significant management problems remain
that prompt some to call for removing NNSA from DOE and either moving
it to another department or establishing it as a separate agency. As
we concluded in January 2007, however, we do not believe that such
drastic changes are necessary, and we continue to hold this view
today. Importantly, we are uncertain whether such significant
organizational changes to increase NNSA's independence would produce
the desired effect of creating a modern, responsive, effective, and
efficient nuclear security enterprise. In light of the substantial
leadership commitment to reform made by senior DOE and NNSA officials,
and the significant improvements that have already been made, we
believe that NNSA remains capable of delivering the management
improvements necessary to be an effective organization, and we will
continue to monitor NNSA's progress making these improvements.
Chairman Turner, Ranking Member Sanchez, and Members of the
Subcommittee, this completes my prepared statement. I would be pleased
to respond to any questions you may have at this time.
GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
If you or your staff members have any questions about this testimony,
please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov. Contact points
for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be
found on the last page of this testimony. GAO staff who made key
contributions to this testimony are Allison Bawden, Ryan T. Coles,
Jonathan Gill, and Kiki Theodoropoulos, Assistant Directors, and
Patrick Bernard, Senior Analyst.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] Specifically, NNSA manages three national nuclear weapon design
laboratories--Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California,
Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Sandia National
Laboratories in New Mexico and California. It also manages four
nuclear weapons production plants--the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Y-12
National Security Complex in Tennessee, the Kansas City Plant in
Missouri, and the Tritium Extraction Facility at DOE's Savannah River
Site in South Carolina. NNSA also manages the Nevada National Security
Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site.
[2] Pub. L. No. 106-65, 113 Stat. 512, 953 (1999).
[3] GAO, Department of Energy: National Laboratories Need Clearer
Missions and Better Management, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/RCED-95-10] (Washington, D.C.: Jan.
27, 1995).
[4] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278] (Washington, D.C.: February
2011).
[5] GAO, Department of Energy: Views on the Progress of the National
Nuclear Security Administration in Implementing Title 32, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-602T] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 4,
2001); GAO, NNSA Management: Progress in the Implementation of Title
32, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-02-93R] (Washington,
D.C.: Dec. 12, 2001); and GAO, Department of Energy: NNSA
Restructuring and Progress in Implementing Title 32, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-02-451T] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 26,
2002).
[6] GAO, National Nuclear Security Administration: Security and
Management Improvements Can Enhance Implementation of the NNSA Act,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-428T] (Washington,
D.C.: Jan. 31, 2007).
[7] GAO, National Nuclear Security Administration: Observations on
NNSA's Management and Oversight of the Nuclear Security Enterprise,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-473T] (Washington,
D.C.: Feb. 16, 2012).
[8] M&O contracts are agreements under which the government contracts
for the operation, maintenance, or support, on its behalf, of a
government-owned or -controlled research, development, special
production, or testing establishment wholly or principally devoted to
one or more of the major programs of the contracting federal agency.
Federal Acquisition Regulation, 48 C.F.R. § 17.601.
[9] GAO, National Nuclear Security Administration: Additional Actions
Needed to Improve Management of the Nation's Nuclear Programs,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-36] (Washington, D.C.:
Jan. 19, 2007). We interviewed agency officials from the Department of
Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense Threat
Reduction Agency, and the Department of Transportation's Federal
Aviation Administration.
[10] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-602T].
[11] Pub. L. 106-398, § 3157 (2000) (codified at 50 U.S.C. § 2410).
[12] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-36].
[13] Section 3117 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2007 contained provisions to temporarily
consolidate the counterintelligence programs of DOE and NNSA under the
Department of Energy. Pub. L. No. 109-364, § 3117 (2006). In 2009,
Congress made this consolidation permanent. Pub. L. No. 111-84, § 3121
(2009).
[14] The Defense Science Board provides the Department of Defense with
independent advice and recommendations on matters relating to the
department's scientific and technical enterprise See Defense Science
Board Task Force, Nuclear Capabilities (Washington, D.C.: December
2006).
[15] DOE Office of Inspector General, Special Report: Management
Challenges at the Department of Energy, DOE/IG-0858 (Washington, D.C.:
November 2011).
[16] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-36].
[17] GAO, National Nuclear Security Administration: Key Management
Structure and Workforce Planning Issues Remain as NNSA Conducts
Downsizing, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-545]
(Washington, D.C.: June 25, 2004).
[18] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-473T].
[19] GAO, Nuclear Weapons: Improved Management Needed to Implement
Stockpile Stewardship Program Effectively, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-48] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 14,
2000) and GAO, Nuclear Weapons: NNSA and DOD Need to More Effectively
Manage the Stockpile Life Extension Program, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-385] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 2,
2009).
[20] GAO, Nuclear Weapons: National Nuclear Security Administration's
Plans for Its Uranium Processing Facility Should Better Reflect
Funding Estimates and Technology Readiness, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-103] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19,
2010).
[21] GAO, Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise: New Plutonium
Research Facility at Los Alamos May Not Meet All Mission Needs,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-337] (Washington, D.C.:
Mar. 26, 2012).
[22] The NNSA fiscal year 2013 budget submission said that future year
funding levels based on actual programmatic requirements will be
produced a later date.
[23] The Budget Control Act of 2011, amending the Balanced Budget and
Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, establishes limits on
discretionary spending for fiscal years 2012 through 2021. In
addition, the act specifies additional limits on discretionary
spending and automatic reductions in direct spending because
legislation was not enacted that would reduce projected deficits by at
least $1.2 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2021. Among other
things, the Budget Control Act requires the Office of Management and
Budget to calculate, and the President to order, a sequestration of
discretionary and direct spending on January 2, 2013, to achieve
reductions for that fiscal year. See GAO, Agency Operations: Agencies
Must Continue to Comply with Fiscal Laws Despite the Possibility of
Sequestration, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-675T]
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 25, 2012).
[End of section]
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